“Thought that went too easy,” Bael said, his hand brushing her arm as they ran. “Are you okay?”

“Five by five.” She grinned. “Nothing like a good fight to get the blood pumping.”

“Just as long as it only pumps inside you,” he said, and they shared a smile.

They’d left the little courtyard attached to the guest quarters by the time the guards found the bodies. They ran through another little piazza, then another, each one hung with vines and trellises, the sound of heavy boots on stone echoing behind them.

“It all looks the same,” Lya cursed. “How do we get out?”

“I follow my nose,” Bael said, flashing her a grin. “This way!”

But “this way” led them into a bigger courtyard, one with many exits. Soldiers entered through three of them.

“Nice one,” Lya snapped. She ran with a sword in one three-fingered hand and a crossbow in the other, both apparently stolen from Albhar’s guards. She raised the bow as she ran and felled one soldier, but a hail of arrows were returned.

They ducked behind a fountain. “There are four of us,” Kett said.

“Five.” Bael pointed to Var, still tiger-shaped.

“Six.” With a shimmer, Dark separated into two forms. Véan, a lion eight feet from nose to tail, tossed his long, dark mane and pawed the ground, leaving behind long gouges. An undulating growl rose in his throat.

“Still. There are hundreds of them. Within a minute or two there could be thousands. And they’re good. Have any of you ever faced troops in battle?”

“Yes,” said Dark, his face grim.

“Yes,” said Lya.

“No,” sighed Bael, “but I’ve been in a hell of a lot of bar fights.”

Kett passed her hands over her face in despair. Six against even one hundred was terrible odds. Six against several hundred, maybe even a thousand, was such terrible odds she couldn’t believe any of them were contemplating it.

“Where the fuck is Striker?” she asked, looking around as if he might reveal himself, a shape silhouetted in the ever-present dust clouds.

“Not here,” Bael said. “Not since we entered the palace.”

“Great,” Kett said, and hauled out her scryer. But Striker didn’t answer.

“He’s probably busy roasting babies or something,” Lya said.

The sun beat down on them. Sand drummed up by the marching soldiers filling the courtyard clogged the air.

Kett started looking around for cover. “Okay, we need to hide. Barricade ourselves somewhere until the battalion shows up.”

“Will they?” Lya asked. “Show up?”

“They’d bloody better,” Kett growled, pointing toward the nearest part of the building. “In there. Get as deep into the palace as we can. Find somewhere defensible. Everyone ready?”

“No,” said Bael. He wrapped his arms around her and kissed her, hard. “Now I am.”

“You’re a lunatic,” she told him.

“So are you.”

He grinned, and then so did she, and they both took off running.

By chance they ended up in the throne room, its high doors slammed shut and barricaded with furniture. It had been empty but for the Maharaja and one pretty concubine, who both fell silent when Var and Véan bounded into the room.

“Are there any other entrances?” Kett demanded, and the terrified, gibbering man pointed to a small door no doubt used by the servants. She smashed a table with the hilt of her sword and used one of the legs to barricade the door.

Outside, someone yelled a command, and a hail of arrows came in through the high windows. Annoyed, Kett manifested a pair of wings, grabbed the Maharaja and flew up there.

The big courtyard was full of soldiers. Rank upon rank of them filled the space, crammed into every corner, jammed up against the walls. Weaponry glinted in the sunlight.

The silence was intense.

Kett held the Maharaja in front of her, leaning away from his wriggling body and kicking legs. “Shoot again and you might hit him,” she shouted.

“Kill them!” he squealed to his soldiers. “Kill them all!”

“If we die, you die,” she told him, and dropped him the ten or so feet to the tiled floor of the throne room. He landed with a crack and howl, at which the concubine let out a cry.

Kett landed by the fallen ruler and aimed her stolen sword at him.

She let her disguise slide away.

“You were the one who handed me over to Albhar, weren’t you?” she asked. “You told him where I lived.”

“I’m sorry!” he cried, sobbing like a child.

“Yeah, me too. I should do to you what Var did to him.”

The Maharaja looked up, fear and tears staining his face. Kett gestured to Var, who padded over and rested one bloody paw on the Maharaja’s chest.

The Maharaja fainted. The concubine whimpered.

“I’m not going to kill him,” Kett said in disgust.

“You’re not?” asked Bael, looking disappointed.

“No. I just want to do this.” She kicked the man over onto his stomach and slashed the back of his thigh, hamstringing him.

“Poetic,” said Bael.

“I thought so.”

Something heavy hit the main doors, its thud reverberating throughout the throne room. Dust shimmered from the rafters.

“How long, do you think?” Dark asked.

The ram hit again. Thud.

“Long enough for the army to get here?” Bael ventured.

Thud. The furniture piled up in front of the doors started to wobble.

“Better be,” Kett said. She picked up the fallen ruler and placed him on the floor by his own throne, where the concubine cowered. “Make yourself useful.”

Thud.

“Are we going to die?” the girl whimpered.

“Yes,” Kett said, and the girl burst into tears.

“I didn’t say today,” Kett sighed. “Stop his bleeding, will you? Use that sari, girl, there’re acres of it. Stop being so stupid.”

“But-”

Thud.

“I don’t want him to die,” Kett said. She looked at the face of the man who’d once been so kind to her. “He saved my leg but tried to sacrifice my life. Well, I’m sparing his life but sacrificing his leg. I think you’ll find that’s a better deal.”

Five minutes passed with little sound except the steady thud of the battering ram. The concubine, sobbing uselessly, tried ineffectually to bandage the Maharaja’s leg. Kett, irritated beyond belief, shoved her aside and did it herself, trying not to think about the irony.

Ten minutes went by and the door remained unbreached. The ram continued to batter it.

Fifteen minutes. The door began to splinter. A footstool, then a small chest, then a table toppled from the barricade. Bael readied his sword and with his free hand reached for Kett, twining his fingers wordlessly with hers.

They faced the doors in silence.

A shout came from outside, then another, and then the noise swelled to a deafening pitch. Men yelled orders to fire. To advance. To defend.

“They’re here,” Lya said.

The door burst open.